160 thoughts on “Open Thread – AGU Week”

With the CAGW “scare” showing signs of winding down, there’s still debris to clean up, e.g. “green” energy like wind. I’m shifting a lot of my attention to Industrial Wind Turbines in New Hampshire. Near the Newfound Lake region one project is complete (Groton Wind on Tenney and Fletcher mountains) and three or four more are in various planning stages.

Next up is Wild Meadows, http://iberdrolarenewables.us/wildmeadows/index.html , which originally proposed several turbines that I think would have been visble from our yurt on the side of Mt Cardigan. A revised plan drops that ridge, but puts larger turbines (500 feet tall) on the other ridges they’re eying.

Partially thanks to throwing the towns of Groton and Rumney under the bus, the opposition to these projects is much greater, Wild Meadows should be filing their formal application to the state this month.

I’m getting interested in issues behind infrasound emitted from IWTs. This started from reading very similar accounts from all over the world, and finding that noise studies generally use “dBa weighting” which greatly discounts lower frequencies. However, the infrasound component unweighted is often over 100 dB and appears to be responsible for many health problems.

I’m also interested in taking infrasound recordings and shifting them some seven octaves through faster playback and frequency scaling. WUWT community – if you know of recordings that people have done like that, please share links.

Also, this might be a good Open Thread to talk about other wind projects that have or will impact people.

Not a regular football fan, but it was fun watching so many football games being played in the snow today. Just like I remembered growing up decades ago. My Philadelphia Eagles didn’t disappoint me either.

Didn’t IPCC tell us we’d never see another football game played in the snow ever again?

Or it might also be a time to reflect that almost everybody with a science training thinks himself or herself to be of a higher calling, almost Godlike, compared to mere mortals. But William S. Burroughs, a mad old junkie, once sagely observed, “there is no job too dirty for a f****** scientist”.
Read on and if the link doesn’t work google Unit731.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

I’m curious, and I don’t have cable/satellite. I was in the path the recent winter storm that tore through America. We got anywhere from 8 to 12 inches of ice, sleet and snow. I’m still stuck in my home due to icy roads. Anybody seeing any attributions to “climate disruption” regarding this storm? It’s not just been the precipitation. It’s been damn cold as well. Any source out there blaming the melting polar ice caps? or any other such nonsense? And to all you who are sharing my cold feet – God bless and keep you warm.

Evening. I am a lay person trying to hold my own in an extremely pro-warmist group.
Someone made the following remark to my attempt to explain why I was intrigued more by the uncertainties of AGW than the peer-reviewed IPCC account: First point is that, like with CFCs, we don’t actually have a way to put the genie back in the bottle. If moving enough carbon out of the mineralized form does push the climate into the same temperature range that it was in in the Pleistocene then we don’t have any way to walk that back, even if it does take 300-400 years to reach that median temperature. A scientific view means recognizing that the climate is the result of a many factors, a few of which have the ability to move the climate baseline up or down and many many of which are responsive to mean conditions. CO2 moves the climate baseline and it does so on a timescale of thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years, because that is the typical rate that the fractions move between their aqueous, mineralized and atmospheric forms. So no, no sensible person believes that the real dramatic climate impacts with start in the next hundred years, the stuff that we care about, like storms and small changes in sea level is pocket change to the global climate. That we might actually be really screwing with things that took geological time to get where they are? Yeah, that’s a pretty solid concern.” Do you agree?

In line with the hundreds of thousands of Bitish homeowners who are having difficulty gaining any access to any home insurance at all, homes in some areas of Australia have also become uninsurable and the increase in insurance rates for homes in Australia far outstrips the rate of inflation.

Deloitte Report on the Insurance Industry in the United States. Note in particular point 8 in the challenges. Note also comment on what insurers are going to do to US premiums in order to manage their climate risks:

Ric… I just threw up in my mouth when I read your comment.
I learned to ski at tenney mt. It was my favorite place to ski.
Great times with great friends. It really sickens me to hear
what these a..holes are doing . For what? I’ve signed partitions
What else can l do. I live in mass but go up to N.H. for skiing
Snowmobiling and ice fishing on conway lake. This bullshit
Has to stop. How?????
.

.I do think it is extremely disturbing that well meaning people have to go through such contortions to try and sort through the lies and the facts without a solid scientific background. This was his further concern: Our current warm climate seems to be to due shifts in terrestrial baseline climate factors and not extra planetary shifts which should by rights place us somewhere in the persistently cold phase. If the move from global persistent ice age to global tropical experience is due almost entirely to a shift in atmospheric content, then yes, it is very valid to assert that artificially accelerating that process should accelerate the shift to an even warmer climate, essentially taking the slow impact of the higher CO2 levels that shifted us away from 40% icecap and doubling them. When you look at it only from the perspective of human experience it seems impossible for the climate to shift that much with such a seemingly small cause, but if you look at the climate over a wider scale there is this terrifying portent that already the climate might have shifted away from a much colder mean temperature, rapidly, and in response to a relatively smaller change in GHG.

I am thinking there could quite easily be extra planetary shifts though. Especially from the sun:
COSMIC RAYS AND CLIMATE
Jasper Kirkby CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Abstract
Among the most puzzling questions in climate change is that of solar-climate variability, which has attracted the attention of scientists for more than two centuries. Until recently, even the existence of solar-climate variability has been controversial—perhaps because the observations had largely involved correlations between climate and the sunspot cycle that had persisted for only a few decades. Over the last few years, however, diverse reconstructions of past climate change have revealed clear associations with cosmic ray variations recorded in cosmogenic isotope archives, providing persuasive evidence for solar or cosmic ray forcing of the climate. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established. Although this remains a mystery, observations suggest that cloud cover may be inﬂuenced by cosmic rays, which are modulated by the solar wind and, on longer time scales, by the geomagnetic ﬁeld and by the galactic environment of Earth. Two different classes of microphysical mechanisms have been proposed to connect cosmic rays with clouds: ﬁrstly, an inﬂuence of cosmic rays on the production of cloud condensation nuclei and, secondly, an inﬂuence of cosmic rays on the global electrical circuit in the atmosphere and, in turn, on ice nucleation and other cloud microphysical processes. Considerable progress on understanding ion-aerosol-cloud processes has been made in recent years, and the results are suggestive of a physically-plausible link between cosmic rays, clouds and climate. However, a concerted effort is now required to carry out deﬁnitive laboratory measurements of the fundamental physical and chemical processes involved, and to evaluate their climatic signiﬁcance with dedicated ﬁeld observations and modelling studies.
Keywords aerosols, clouds, climate, solar-climate variability, cosmic rays, ions, global electrical cir- cuit, CERN CLOUD facility
Published in Surveys in Geophysics 28, 333–375, doi: 10.1007/s10712-008-9030-6 (2007). The original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.com

// Satire //
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> It’s worse than we thought!
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So why wait?
Why miss out on all the fun excitement, and manipulation you can get from AGW?
Call today, you’ll be glad you did!

*** Columbia School Of Climate Change is NOT affiliated with rational thought or valid science. ;-))

“NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: for Safety, for Work, for Fun – FOR LIFE”
============
Interesting, that they feel the need to promote themselves ?
Don’t know how long it has been there, I usually just look at the radar returns.

Gary,
We do sympathise with your plight, however you will ensure that no fossil fuels are harmed by your cold snap. As synthetic fibres are made from the evil oil, perhaps instead you can slaughter a few criters and wear their skins as protection.

climateace says:
December 8, 2013 at 4:47 pm
Hottest spring on record for Australia:
>>>>>
See, the roos are causing GW. There was no KGW before the roos started it, QED
(Okay, maybe the koalas are involved also, but the roos should be gathered up and sent to England. Poetic justice.)

It really sickens me to hear
what these a..holes are doing . For what? I’ve signed partitions
What else can I do. I live in mass but go up to N.H. for skiing
Snowmobiling and ice fishing on conway lake. This bullshit
Has to stop. How?????

Oppose wind power in Mass – well, maybe not. The proposed projects have agreed to sell their power to Mass et al. If you guys would build more of your own, you might not need our sites! Check out http://www.ptcfacts.info/ – the Production Tax Credit is up for renewal again this year, it’ll probably be tacked on to some other bill Congress has to pass, ask your congresscritter to oppose it.

curiousnc,
This is a very common play, it’s an application of the precautionary principle. In the end this argument doesnt hold water because the cost of insurance is approximately worth the extinction of the human race. Whatever we do is going to affect the environment, whether it be adding artificial nitrates, CO2, raw heat energy, water, or whatever.

The pollutant di hydrogen nitride is present in voluminous amount due to man, but there are no protests about this potent GHG.

So what to do, firstly we look at the effects, what would happen if it hypòthetically did get warmer. Well we know from experience that life gets nicer, day time temperature maximums are lower, minimums are higher, and things become more tropical. Life and species abound, there is more food and free water. Conversely as it gets colder, ecosystems contract, extinctions occur, death Increases from limited food supplies.

Ask your friends this, In the little ice age when CO2 was supposedly ideal at 270 PPM 1/2 the population of preindustrial Europe died from cold, disease and famine. Since then is has become warmer CO2 fertilisation has incresed food yeild by maybe 15%, Western Europe and North america have become world powers on the back of reliable food and water supplies, instead of struggling to avoid famine as during the LIA, sure, during the LIA you could go skating for free on the Thames, but thinking about it, when would your friends prefer to live, during the cold depths of the LIA with little prospect of living beyond 40, or now?

A fall in the average temperature of the world by just 0.8 degrees would put us right back in the LIA, Europe is on the knife edge of it being too cold to feed their populations, less than 1 degree C away. now ask what would they like to do, warm the earth, or cool it, which direction lies most safety,

Mind you, if we did end up back in a LIA then for us in the equatorial regions life would be good, imagine the exports to wor torn Europe, and North america, now unable to feed themselves from nicer parts of the world. BTW what would your friends think the political situation might be in a world where New York is under a glacier?

In which climate direction lies safety, what is the precautionary principle telling you now?

The sad truth is that we don’t know enough about the climate. Aztecs of Tenochtitlan believed that the Sun had to be coaxed into rising the next day by sacrificing a noble person. And – it worked! What unimaginable disasters have been averted simply by following their scientific religion.

If you google “C4 plant”, you will find that plants developed in an atmosphere with a much higher CO2 concentration. And plants continued to eat CO2, depositing carbon as coal (and maybe oil and natural gas, I am not sure if hydrocarbons on Saturn’s moon Titan qualify as fossil fuels.) We don’t know so much yet!

The EPA’s ethanol mandate proposal is open for public comment.. A lot of pro-ethanol voices are trying to convince the EPA to retract their reduced mandate levels. I encourage all citizens concerned about this boondoggle “green” energy source to leave knowledgable comments about keeping the reduced mandates. I have more information about the proposal and the comments here:

[spring] BUSHFIRES MENACE HOMES AT THE BASIN
For three hours on Saturday night bush fires encircled The Basin, a township near Bayswater. More than 300 homes were menaced by the flames. This graphic picture was taken when the blaze was at its height. Yesterday the fire spread toward Ferny Creek and Sassafras
Argus, Monday, November 29, 1937http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/583930?zoomLevel=2

Spring 2013 in Melbourne was rather cold and wet, as a matter of fact.
And there was an unusually thick blanket of summer snow at Thredbo last Friday.
Hottest snowfall on record!

Spring 2013 in Melbourne was rather cold and wet, as a matter of fact.
And there was an unusually thick blanket of summer snow at Thredbo last Friday.
Hottest snowfall on record!]

I know Melbourne is an important city to its inhabitants but it occupies only a tiny fraction of the Australian continent. Trying to argue that Australia has not had its hottest Spring on record because you had a cold time in Melbourne is grossly unscientific.

One cherry-picked fire in Sassafras in 1937 tells us nothing except that you are willing to cherrypick.

Oh the joys of living in the south-eastern US. Yesterday the temperature dropped during the day and today the temperature will rise during the night. Such events are not uncommon in the winter here. This temperature map from a few days ago speaks volumes. It would not hurt my feelings if the temperatures stayed that warm all winter long.https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ba2GM4MCMAAOKPw.png:large

Melbourne is to Australia as Australia is to Earth.
Why are you cherry picking and then criticizing someone for following up the path you left?’

Incorrect. Australia is larger proportionally to Earth than Melbourne is to Australia.

It is an open string. Anyone can choose any topic. I chose to introduce two topics. In that context several respondents have cherry-picked isolated events as if they had any sort of logical weight.

One cherrypicked bushfire adds nothing to the Bushfire Report I cited. (I take this opportunity to suggest that people who, like me, are seriously concerned about the ongoing growth in their insurance premiums read the Report).

Neither does a cherry-picked cold spell in Melbourne add anything to the topic of Australia having its hottest spring on record.

“climateace,”Victoria is not a tiny fraction of Australia. Victoria was cold and wet throughout spring.
There were no bushfires in Victoria during spring of 2013, unlike the spring of 1937.
What parts of Australia, then, were responsible for breaking the record?

Now in case you were born yesterday, or simply forgot…
= = = = = = = = = = = =
“DROUGHT will become a redundant term as Australia plans for a permanently drier future, according to the nation’s urban water industries chief…. “The urban water industry has decided the inflows of the past will never return,” Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young said. “We are trying to avoid the term ‘drought’ and saying this is the new reality.”
(The Age, 2007)

“Drought is too comfortable a word,” said John Williams, the New South Wales state Commissioner for Natural Resources. “Drought connotes a return to normal. We need to be adjusting.”
(Cosmos, 2007)

“The pattern that we’re seeing now in the weather in Australia is very much the pattern was predicted by computer models as much as a decade ago. We will have to get by with less water. The CSIRO’s telling us that. We’re seeing it now, in the evidence before our eyes in our rivers and creeks, and of course the computer models in the global models have been predicting just this now for some years. I think all evidence says that this is our new climate and we have to get by with less water than we’ve ever had before.”
Tim Flannery, 2007

Where did that “permanent” Australian drought go? Did it hide in the oceans or in a stadium wave?
Why do children in the U.K. still experience snow?http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2010
Finally, do any of the failed prophesies of a religion ever bother you?

Climateace… of course you would own the effects of decarbonisation too won’t you. Please tell us which statements about climate action you are confortable owning.

You are ok about 30,000 extra deaths last winter in the UK alone from carbon taxes
You are ok at the poor being deprived of corn, or sugar or other rich simple carb source so that you can burn ethanol in your car
You are happy to carpet 15 square kilometers of the earth with solar panels ( no gaps) for every gigawatt of power capacity mankind needs.
You are ok with birds being torn up, deafened, blinded, or burnt by the effects of windmills and concentrating solar collectors,
You are ok with indigenous peoples in Africa being forceably removed from their lands and killed to make way for carbon credit earning plantations.
You are OK with burying planetary oxygen for millenia underground
You really think after cyclone Haiyan we should respond by constructing more windmills and solar farms instead of building storm shelters
You are comfortable spending a few trillion dollars on reducing warming by 0.001 degrees instead of immunising the worlds children, and ending wotld hunger
You are comfortable, shoving a world only 0.8 degrees away from the famine and pestilence of the little ice age where 1/2 of Europe died, back toward an ice age.
You are certain that research into climate change of +0.8 degrees in 150 years is more important than research into cures for cancer, SIDS, and malaria

Do you understand the meaning of misanthropist ? If not then go look it up. Then my friend, for a picture of one, look in the nearest mirror and think about the millions that died in the little ice age or are condemned to death, disease or perpetual poverty by your ideology.

PS, I might add mr/ms climateace that the Australian BOM last year changed the way it calculated records for continental Australia and so this spring was in fact the hottest on record, since ….. wait for it… last spring, using this metric. I might add that as much as I aspire to supporting this nation (Australia) I still understand the global in Global warming to mean more than just Australiia. Now, what was that about cherry picking Climateace?

Talking of Australia, the carbon tax apparently has worked in reducing emissions of CO2. The figures are in, the science is settled, Australia’s emissions dropped ~0.1% (Apparently) in the first year. That’s ~0.1% of ~1.5% of ~3% of ~400ppm/v CO2. No-one here is attributing the reduction to the economic downturn.

Mainstream media TV news can no longer reach critical brainwashing mass anymore. What do they get, maybe 300, 400, 500 thousand viewers on their TV channels these days? Virtually no one goes there. That’s essentially nothing in our country of over 300 million.

The Weather Channel reflects that dilemma with their new cheep bland video graphics. Who gives a crap about their crap anymore? Nobody is watching anyway.

You are making things seem much more complicated than they really are.

The only thing I ‘own’ is my home insurance rate increasing much faster than the rate of inflation. Still, I am lucky. Other British and Australian homeowners can no longer get insurance at all. The insurers might be greedy, true, but here in Australia we live in a capitalist society and, IMHO, the investors are enttiled to their profits for the risks they take. But floods and fires in certain areas keep chewing up the profits.

And once the insurers start giving up insuring we really do know that the ‘doubt’ game is over, don’t we?.

anthony had a thread called “18 Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest – Hansen’s alarmism on parade” about this study and i just noticed Popular Mechanics gave it plenty of space, ending with this excerpt:

3 Dec: Popular Mechanics: Jerry Bellinson: Climate Scientists: IPCC Is Wrong—We Need a 1-Degree limit on Warming
James Hansen and Jeffrey Sachs of the Columbia University Earth Institute lead a new study disputing the IPCC conclusion that the world can withstand a 2 degree Celsius increase over preindustrial level. Anything more than 1 degree, they say, could lead to disaster.

Most of the questions at the press conference, which was attended by a couple of dozen journalists, came down to this: “Why even propose a carbon tax, since politicians will never enact it?” Sachs argued that there is widespread public support for some kind of action on climate change, and that what has been lacking in building support for a tax is a practical vision for how to cut U.S. emissions, probably through improved electrical infrastructure, efficiency, renewables, and next-generation nuclear power plants. And, he admonished, “Don’t say something’s never going to happen. I was in the Kremlin in December 1991 the day the Soviet Union ended. Anything is possible.”

8 Dec: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Axe carbon tax to keep lights on and cut energy bills, says ScottishPower chief
ScottishPower says tax will force coal plants to shut too soon and push up bills
Britain’s unilateral carbon tax should be scrapped before it causes blackouts, pushes up household bills and makes the UK uncompetitive, ScottishPower argues.
Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer, warns that the “carbon price floor” (CPF), which taxes companies for burning fossil fuels, will make Britain’s remaining coal plants “largely uneconomic by around the middle of the decade”…
Writing in Monday’s Telegraph, Mr Anderson also calls for a review of Britain’s £12bn programme to install “smart” electricity and gas meters in every home, suggesting costs should be cut to reduce the impact on consumer bills.
Several coal-fired power plants have already shut this year under EU rules to help curb acid rain and pollution. About a dozen plants remain operational and provide about 40pc of UK power…
But a combination of further EU rules and the carbon tax, which increases steeply every year, means most of these coal plants may be forced to close by 2015 or 2016.
“Abolishing the CPF, or freezing it at the current rate, would help to reduce upward pressure on bills, improve UK competiveness and help in cost effectively maintaining security of supply,” Mr Anderson says…
Manufacturing bodies and consumer groups both attacked the Chancellor for failing to cut or scrap the carbon tax in last week’s Autumn Statement, despite the Prime Minister’s pledge to “roll back” green levies… (READ THE REST)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10504524/Axe-carbon-tax-to-keep-lights-on-and-cut-energy-bills-says-ScottishPower-chief.html

MORE REALITY: IN AUSTRALIA, AN OBSTRUCTIONIST SENATE IS THIS WEEK TRYING TO DELAY THE REPEAL OF OUR CARBON TAX UNTIL NEXT YEAR WHEN THE GOVT HAS THE NUMBERS, EVEN THO THE NEW GOVT WAS VOTED IN TO GET RID OF IT.

[Talking of Australia, the carbon tax apparently has worked in reducing emissions of CO2. The figures are in, the science is settled, Australia’s emissions dropped ~0.1% (Apparently) in the first year. That’s ~0.1% of ~1.5% of ~3% of ~400ppm/v CO2. No-one here is attributing the reduction to the economic downturn.]

Just as well the Abbott Government is going to get rid of the carbon tax spend $3 billion pf taxpayers’ funds on direct action. That should fix the problem, eh?

I leave it to a financial genius to tell the difference between a tax and a tax.

Yes indeed the BoM did excatly that, CHANGE the way they calculate temperatures for Australia. Still there are those who forget that little inconvienient fact. I do recall Climateace has a vested interest in the “carbon economy”, he has a farm somewhere that he wants to use as a “carbon farm”, or something like that if I recall correctly from another thread. Abbotts direct action plan will prevent Climateace from “farming” carbon under the previous Govn’t carbon tax.

Just in case people were discombobulated by bobl’s herd of unicorns here is a direct quote from the BOM site:

‘Spring 2013 was the warmest on record for Australia in terms of both mean temperatures (anomaly of +1.57 °C) and maximum temperatures (anomaly of +2.07 °C).’

And, for those interested in cherrypicked responses, yes, we do have our bushfire plan up to date and our valuables and our treasured photos where we can grab them quickly. Luckily there are still insurers who want to take us on and we can still afford to pay the ever-increasing premiums.

We had 600 houses burn in our city not so long ago, so it pays to be prepared.

You wrote: … if you look at the climate over a wider scale there is this terrifying portent that already the climate might have shifted away from a much colder mean temperature, rapidly, and in response to a relatively smaller change in GHG.

Please do not be terrified of portents. There is enough to worry about without fretting over portents, especially irrational ones.

Let’s look at some wider scales. For 99% of the last 250,000,000 years, the earth has been warmer than today. A mere 20,000 years ago was the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum), the coldest the Earth has been since the Karoo Ice Age in the Permian Epoch. Look it up.

We are today barely 4°C warmer than the nadir of paleoclimate on a geologic scale. That ain’t much, but sadly the planet has been cooling for the last 8,000 years. We are slipping back into another oppressive Ice Age stadial.

Any shift towards warming should be welcomed. Warmer is better. Warmer means longer growing seasons, more rainfall, more bioproductivity, more biodiversity, more Life In General. Warmer is better for humanity, too. Most of humanity lives where it’s warm. We are tropical animals. Our main foodstuffs are tropical, too (corn, rice, wheat, etc.). With the exception of the Little Ice Age, all of human civilization has occurred when it was warmer than today.

If CO2 can warm the planet, then by all means let ‘er rip. If not, then at least we can say we tried. In any case, CO2 is The Essential Nutrient of Life, and more is better.

Tell your friend that you endorse and support life. Life is a good thing. It beats the alternative.

Yes indeed the BoM did excatly that, CHANGE the way they calculate temperatures for Australia. Still there are those who forget that little inconvienient fact.’

I am happy for you to demonstrate that BOM is, in fact, incorrect and that Australia has just NOT had its hottest spring on record. Over to you on that one. A passing sneer by yourself and bobl at BOM does not carry any scientific weight, BTW.

‘I do recall Climateace has a vested interest in the “carbon economy”, he has a farm somewhere that he wants to use as a “carbon farm”, or something like that if I recall correctly from another thread. Abbotts direct action plan will prevent Climateace from “farming” carbon under the previous Govn’t carbon tax.’

Yes, to the farm. You will be happy to know that we have had very good rains in our area and that we have, as a result, our full irrigantion entitlements: money in the bank.

But wrong to the rest of it. 100% wrong. Paying farmers to carry out soil carbon sequestration, has been for six years, one of the three main pillars of direct action. Mr Hunt, the Minister for the Environment, is just now conducting a six month consultation period on the DAP, after which I fully expect to be able to bid (Dutch auction style) to get paid for sequestering soil carbon. That is if the pesky soil scientists and economists don’t talk the Minister and the Government out of their policy. They mostly reckon it is bullsh*t.

Of what to do with $3 billion of taxpayer’s funds, including mine, of course.

We have a Government that patently does not believe in the science much at all and thinks that climate science ‘is crap’, that is too cowardly to admit it, and that is fully committed to spending billions of dollars on a problem that it believes does not exist, in a way that is the least-cost effective option of all, in order to fail in reach an emissions reduction target that it does not believe in.

If you can make sense of the Abbott Government’s approach to AGW, be my guest.

Of what to do with $3 billion of taxpayer’s funds, including mine, of course.”

Abbott hasn’t, and probably won’t, do anything with it once the carbon tax is repealed. Unlike the tax, it’s a plan and can be implemented or not.

And on the news now, the largest fire this year in NSW which burnt through 50,000 hectares and a few houses which was being blamed on CO2 driven climate change was caused by the defense services on land that not had hazard reduction performed for 20 years.

I’m curious… How did Ross McKitrick know – in 2005, four years prior to the infamous Jones line in the most famous of the Climategate emails – how did McKitrick know to refer to Mann’s deception as a “trick”? (If RM hadn’t used quotes, I would not have noticed his choice of word.) (For reference, see p. 36 of RM’s chapter in P. Michaels’ Shattered Consensus)

‘Of what to do with $3 billion of taxpayer’s funds, including mine, of course.”

Abbott hasn’t, and probably won’t, do anything with it once the carbon tax is repealed. Unlike the tax, it’s a plan and can be implemented or not.’

It is interesting just how many Abbott supporters (not that you are necessarily an Abbott supporter) actually believe that Abbott has been lying for six years about his intention to spend $3 billion on the DAP in order to achieve the 5% emissions target by 2020. There were posters here on WUWT before the elections stating that they did not expect Abbott to honour his election promise on the DAP.

I beg to differ. I am sure that the Government will implement the DAP.

‘And on the news now, the largest fire this year in NSW which burnt through 50,000 hectares and a few houses which was being blamed on CO2 driven climate change was caused by the defense services on land that not had hazard reduction performed for 20 years.’

Well, there are three facts randomly plucked (cherry-picked?) from tens of thousands of facts available on our bush fire history. They are so random that they it is difficult to guess the point, if any, you are seeking to make. Even then, some of the your ‘facts’ are questionable. I seem to recall that around 200 houses were burned, for example, which is hardly ‘a few’. Various fires joined up into one super fire. While it is true that Defence ignited one of these fires, it did not ignite the rest. Finally, I would doubt that all of the area burned had not been control burned for 20 years.

Dr C. ‘how did McKitrick know to refer to Mann’s deception as a “trick”?’

I don’t think McKitrick using the term ‘trick’ as in ‘trick data’ shows off his powers of prediction. ‘Trick is a commonly used term when manipulating data. Not is a deceptive way, but in a process well understood and accepted by mathematicians.

Unfortunately, when people, not familiar with the process, come across they word, they assume that means the same as it does in common English, ie to deceive or be deceptive. This is the understanding that I believe you have accepted.

Terry Comeau says: I would suggest that we sceptics start referring to the IPCC as the United Nations IPCC, rather than simply the IPCC.

No need to change the name. But I agree it could be made more pronounceable. For alphabet soups like IPCC this is best done by the judicious insertion of a few extra vowels.

But “UNIPOCC,” which sounds silly, evokes the UN (ugh), and rhymes with Schlock, Crock, Knock, etc. isn’t really a change of name, but simply a fuller version of it: United Nations Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change.

IPeCaC

That was my brainwave a few years back, IIRC–or anyway, I thought I invented it back then, although it may have been used before me. The problem is that this is a childish insult; it can’t masquerade as a neutral term, and thus be used by pawky / deadpan humorists and adult mainstream commenters.

Now it has only been in operation for about three years and they are already replacing the blades. For better effenciency so they say. With them being a private generator I cannot seem to find output information.

So Climateace,
You want to impose your climate taxes and ETSes but won’t own the damage your ideology causes. Does that make you a hypocrite as well as a misanthropist?.

You also completely failed to realise that your inordinately expensive insurance is entirely due to the actions of irresponsible green councils who refuse to do adequate hazard reduction and have used legal manouvers to unconstitutionally prevent landowners from clearing adequate fire breaks around their property in the name of “environmentalism”. So premiums are being set in an environment where your own local government is contibuting to burning down houses, killing people and animals and of course therefore driving up the cost of premiums. What you should be doing, “ace”, is demanding that your local member enacts legislation that prevents government interference in the cutting of firebreaks on private land. A 200m firebreak , that’s what will lower premiums and make you insurable

You are right about is the direct action scheme however , it will be almost exactly as effective as Gillards 40 Billion dollar scheme that is, not effective at all in lowering the temperature, except that instead of being a total waste of 44 Billion dollars over 4 years, it will be a not quite so total waste of 3 Billion dollars instead. I say not so total waste, because it will address some land degradation, salination and water problems too. I am increasingly hopefull that it might even get used to build some cyclone shelters, which of course wont do a jot about CO2 but just might save a few lives from the weather. You’re right, the Oz government should scrap, direct action, the Renewable Energy Target, and all the other dodgy schemes as well. Weather that you want to be worse is weather in a world that for the last 7-22 years can’t be proved to have warmed at all, something wrong with the Cause and effect there “ace”, bushfires are so much worse from climate ” staying much the same” for 17-22 years…. Hmm now there’s food for thought?

But who am I to talk, you’re the climate ace, and you’re perfectly entitled to be a deluded misanthropic hypocrite if you want to.

climateace says:
…yes, we do have our bushfire plan up to date and our valuables and our treasured photos where we can grab them quickly. Luckily there are still insurers who want to take us on and we can still afford to pay the ever-increasing premiums.
We had 600 houses burn in our city not so long ago, so it pays to be prepared.
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
What city would that be? I can’t find it:https://www.google.com/search?q=%22600+homes%22+burnt&hl=en
And why don’t you have a flood plan?
quote:The Brisbane River peaked on 13 January at a lower level than predicted, but still 20,000 houses in Brisbane were inundated.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Queensland_floods
Did the climate gurus predict the flooding, or did they instead contribute to the problem with prophesies of a permanent drought? See my previous comment for some help with the answer.

By the way, climate ace, I never said the BOM was wrong just that the claim is based on an unpublished formula, commenced just last year, the same formula that claimed an angry summer “record” which according to the satellite data wasn’t a record at all.

I don’t claim the BOM is wrong, I never did, but until that methodology is published it’s just another case of an appeal to authority…. Trust us, we’re climate scientists? Rubbish, show me the data, and your methods, and after comparison with the satellite record, I’ll determine for myself if you have a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, I stand by my assertion, since this method has only been in use for 2 years then this spring is the hottest since records ( calculated by this method) began… Ie since last year.

[Talking of Australia, the carbon tax apparently has worked in reducing emissions of CO2. The figures are in, the science is settled, Australia’s emissions dropped ~0.1% (Apparently) in the first year. That’s ~0.1% of ~1.5% of ~3% of ~400ppm/v CO2. No-one here is attributing the reduction to the economic downturn.]

Just as well the Abbott Government is going to get rid of the carbon tax spend $3 billion pf taxpayers’ funds on direct action. That should fix the problem, eh?

I leave it to a financial genius to tell the difference between a tax and a tax.”
________________________________________________________________
Tony Abbott won’t do anything. He just added Direct Action to make it sound good. You really are a sandwich short of a picnic aren’t you Climateace. It is probably Nick Stoke in disguise. LOL

Good question on the flood plan. When we purchased our house we did so with a view to never getting either flooded or burnt out. It turns out that the second bit of the plan was optimistic, what with suburbs getting burnt down and all in the new normal of hotter extremes. (Check the Fire Report cited above, for details).

What does rather irritate me is that that the insurance premiums of people such as ourselves, who do not build amongst the gum trees because they are fire bombs, have gone up to pay for the idiots who do build amongst the gum trees. Ditto for idiots who build on flood plains.

In some locations building a house was close to suicidal before AGW arrived and it has become worse since as things get hotter and hotter.

Their choice, of course, but expecting everyone to pay higher premiums for their poor risk management is a bit over the top, IMHO. Still, here and there. insurers are getting the right idea and refusing to insure foolish people at all.

In terms of the fire management issues you raise, it is all so boringly predictable isn’t it?

People build a house in a fire prone area and then demand that all the biodiversity in the adjacent bushland be damaged or destroyed by ‘hazard reduction burning’ to protect them from their insanity in building in the wrong place. Naturally this ‘hazard reduction burning’, which is expensive, has to be done with other people’s tax money, fire levies, flood levies, special rates and the like. Equally naturally, these fools expect the state to pay for expensive fire equipment. And, of course, they expect volunteers to risk their lives to save them from their stupidity. And they keep doing it because, apart from the ones who do get burnt to death, they get away with their stupidity.

When their houses do get burnt or destroyed in floods, do they blame themselves for their folly? Oh no. They scream blue murder at the government/council/authorities for not protecting them from their own stupidity. The ‘victims’ expect, and get, expensive taxpayer programs to help themselves rebuild their bloody houses (and all that costly infrastructure) in the wrong place again.

Oh, and of course, the insurers with every hundred million or billion dollar fire or flood disaster whack up the house insurance premiums for the rest of us.

Abbotts direct action plan (NOT a tax) is estimated to cost taxpayers, IF implemented, ~AU$3bil. While the IMPLEMENTED carbon tax costs “polluters” (And passed on to comsumers) an estimated ~AU8$bil, of which 10% goes to the UN.

The BoM uses 112 stations, of the total avilable, to “calculate” a national average (LOL). That’s 1 device for every ~68,500 square kilometers!

Well done to Climateace for beleiving the BoM and their manufactured tripe!

And, again, we have Tim Flannery predicting bushfires will be worse in 30 years. This must be on the back of the forest fire hazard index that has used complete data only since Oct 1991. I seem to recall that he predicted dams would be empty round about now and over the past few years forcing state Govn’ts to build De-Sal plants, ALL, now mothballed!

RokShox, in the past, when climate has changed, humans have perished rather than adapt. They didn’t have the ability to move great distances, on mass and usually in a weakened state. They re-colonise the areas when the climate changes back again. If we were to encounter climate change now, many more people will be affected as there are more people. They also have the ability to move….. jump on a boat and within a week or two they are somewhere else where they can survive. This may not be looked on to lightly by the people that are already there as they may not have the capacity or heart to allow the new arrivals in.

While it is true that Defence ignited one of these fires, it did not ignite the rest. Finally, I would doubt that all of the area burned had not been control burned for 20 years.”

I never said it did. I know many volunteer fire fighters, their accunt of those events do not support your view. I did say it was the LARGEST fire AND it was deliberatlely set by defence services in an area that has has no hazard reduction in 20 years an inquiery has found in. These are NOT my words.

“climateace” – my questions that you keep avoiding like the plague, reframed:
1) What regions of Australia were pulling above their weight to give a spring temperature record for the sum?
2) What is the name of the city you live in – that one you anecdotally alleged had recently lost 600 homes to fire; the one where your insurance premiums are skyrocketing and you need lots of disaster plans: what city is it?
3) Did climate priests (like Flannery) contribute to the perception that rain in Australia was now a thing of the past, like snow in the U.K. once was, or did they predict the floods that damaged/destroyed 20,000 homes in Brisbane alone?

“The urban water industry has decided the inflows of the past will never return,” Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young said. (The Age, 2007)
“Drought is too comfortable a word,” said John Williams, the New South Wales state Commissioner for Natural Resources. “Drought connotes a return to normal. We need to be adjusting.” (Cosmos, 2007)
“When their houses do get burnt or destroyed in floods, do they blame themselves for their folly? Oh no. They scream blue murder at the government/council/authorities for not protecting them from their own stupidity.,” explained the shameless troll calling itself “climateace.”

The Climate ace lost his argument, so now he is shifting the goal posts so it is the people that don’t live in cities own fault that they have burned to death after the councils restricted fire breaks around their houses to as little as 6m.

He blames the same people that put food on his inner city canberran ( if I read the posts right) plate each night, day,after day, year after year.

I might point out ace, that I did in fact offer you good advice on how to address your insurance problem. Have your government modify the laws to increase the clearance geometry to the point that houses can be adequately protected. Have your government do the protective backburns, build the dams and levy banks to control flooding, add some strategic sea walls and the reduced property losses will bring down premiums. Maybe $3 Bn could make a start on that, but you better get moving, or greenpeace will beat you to it!

Finally, Once again you are wrong, as a matter of fact I do own Australian property, lots of it , Australian rural property, and yes I do have insurance, good insurance, and yes I do have a firebreak, about 200m of it, oh and just for starters I also manage to sink some 20 Tonnes of CO2 every year more than I emit.

For those in other countries, the Australian bush is tough, its fire hardened, the common trees, eucalyptus, etc have leaves loaded with hydrocarbons, some have seed that rely on being burned for germination. On a hot day, the oil evaporating off the trees can form an explosive mixture. If I burn off a pile of branches not 4 feet high and 6 ft wide of dry Australian natives the flames can reach 6 – 8 metres, intense radiant heat 20m and embers 100m. Yet some Australian councils only allow clearing of bush for barely 6m around a house,. If a 4ft pile of rubbish can produce 6m of flame imagine what a grove of closely spaced eucalyptus 20m high loaded with hydrocarbons can do. Consider then what sort of safety margin you’d want for YOUR loved ones from a grove of these biological firebombs.

Khwarizmi says:
December 9, 2013 at 3:45 am
““Drought is too comfortable a word,” said John Williams, the New South Wales state Commissioner for Natural Resources. “Drought connotes a return to normal. We need to be adjusting.” (Cosmos, 2007)”

I was in Colorado last weekend, I just wore long sleeve shirts. But that wind became scary at 10,000 ft on my way to Porterville, CA.
Guess there’s no TWTW on AGU week. I put together my weekly rant. Here goes
Oil rose higher on a 5.6 million barrel drop in US stockpiles after ten weeks of builds. Wheat dropped on bigger than expected official estimate of the Canadian harvest. Corn bounced a bit on short covering.

The latest economic numbers suggest that we are finally into an actual self-sustaining economic recovery. Last week saw only 298,000 new unemployment claims, down 23,000 from the previous week and this is THE LOWEST in six years.

On Thursday GDP bolted higher to +3.6% which is shockingly above the +3.1% expected. But to be fair, this GDP report is not as robust as the headline reading would imply. That’s because most of the increase came from the growth in inventory I told you about. That usually leads to less production in the future as they sell off what was already made. Or simply, growth over the next couple quarters will be lower as it was already booked in Q3.

So do not be too enamored with the +3.6% effort. The estimates for Q4 are now coming in closer to 1.4% because of what just happened. When smoothed out over the coming year we will likely still find ourselves slogging thru growth territory of +2%…maybe up to 2.5%. That is plenty of growth to keep earnings on the rise. Weather permitting, if the inventory moves briskly, then all the better.

November had 203,000 new jobs created according to the survey of employer establishments. While this is not a fantastic amount, it probably doesn’t reflect the actual number of people currently working, (re: what I said before about survey accuracy). The Household Survey on the other hand shows unemployment dropping to 7% which is the lowest it’s been in more than five years.

The conventional (Conservative) wisdom is that this drop in the unemployment rate means people have given up looking for work since it’s not reflected in the number of new jobs, but this isn’t what they’re saying this time. (I will come back to this). Simply put, the employer survey isn’t all that accurate. During the Holiday Seasons you are seeing a surge of hiring in areas that aren’t being properly sampled, but it does show up when people are asked directly by phone if they are working. This includes small businesses and so-called ‘not-on-the-books’ jobs that don’t get counted, but do help out the economy.

Further evidence that things are really picking up is the new University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey, which was predicted to increase only one point, that surged to 82.5 for December and was up from 75 last month.

The Conservative hacks aren’t trying to downplay the jobs gains as you might expect. Instead they’re actually trying to make it sound way better than it really is, because that gins up their popular ‘FEAR MONGERING’ that the Federal Reserve is going to taper its QE3 bond buying program and thus the economy will most certainly tank. Janet Yellen, the incoming Fed Chair has made it perfectly clear that she’s not impressed with such talk.

The ‘gold is the only real currency’ crowd (gold is down BTW) are still certain that there will be runaway inflation ANY DAY NOW! In fact the whole point is to create some inflation so business will stop just sitting on their cash. Even if too much inflation due to excess money being in circulation were to occur the Fed could start selling its bond holdings to take money out of circulation again. Even if the Fed took a loss on the sold bonds, it wouldn’t really matter because they just printed the money they used to buy them anyway. No tax revenue was involved.

To be clear, I’m not in favor of this way of regulating the economy. But because our embarrassing government is so dysfunctional there are no effective policies on trade, finance, energy and so on. So what the Fed is doing is managing to hold things together for now. There is still the ‘too big to fail’ Wall Street bankers ‘Retake the White House’ crash coming in a couple of years if we don’t get some real action from the 2015 Congress. Elections do matter and most of the dysfunction is the result of the Grand Obstruction Party.
Unfortunately Elizabeth Warren says she won’t leave the Senate early to run for President, but she didn’t say she wouldn’t take the VP slot… at least I preferred to hear it that way. Hillary is wrong for Dems and wrong for US, caters to the 1% plutocracy (she was Sam Walton’s show pony), arrogant, duplicitous, complacent warmonger.

Guns continue to belch smoke since the Dems decided to use a simple-majority vote to change Senate rules and eliminate the filibuster for executive office-holders and federal judges (apart from the Supreme Court) and NOT for legislation. (If they seriously wanted your guns they would have gone for legislation and Obama never would have expanded concealed carry) Smith & Wesson earnings are expected to be down a wee bit, revenue still in line. When Mr. Market starts doing the ‘hey look at me, it’s now all safe to get back in’, I am not interested in working folks’ money. Except for these and a biotech with a 3 bagger, I took profits. Billionaires’ are another thing entirely. Heaven knows they’ve tried to shake me out. No, didn’t Twitter (yet), all I could get were twitter droppings.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?t=my&l=on&z=l&q=l&p=&a=&c=&s=RGR%2C+&ql=1
_______________________
This news below is counter to claims that Obama is arming Al Qaeda and McCain is supporting ( example as said by Louie Gohmert), looks like they wish to avoid the mistakes made in Iraq and Libya, where the army and police were disbanded with the fall of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, allowing terrorist groups to rise in a security vacuum. It’s kind of nice to have a President not involved in war as a family business.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz, elected 13 months ago by actual voters, said Thursday he’d prefer to see state legislators pick U.S. senators – as they were until a century ago, when the 17th Amendment came along.

Direct election of senators has eroded states’ rights, Cruz argued, speaking to a ballroom filled with conservative state lawmakers from around the country.

“If you have the ability to hire and fire me,” he said, “I’m a lot less likely to break into your house and steal your television. So there’s no doubt that was a major step toward the explosion of federal power and the undermining of the authority of the states at the local level.”

The 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913 amid dismay that powerful federal lawmakers were sometimes picked through corruption and backroom deals. It was also partly a response to growing public irritation that even as more and more Americans had the right to vote, they got no say in who represented them in the Senate.

Cruz spoke over lunch to a policy summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a controversial group that for years has quietly circulated “model” legislation on anything from voter ID rules to tax policy. He got standing ovations.
________________________
I couldn’t bring myself to listening to the noise machine comment on the death of Nelson Mandela. Dick Cheney has SUCH a big heart, bet you won’t see him at any memorials.

As Americans honor the memory of Nelson Mandela, they must grapple with the inconvenient truth that one of their most honored recent presidents, Ronald Reagan, fiercely opposed punishing white-ruled South Africa for keeping Mandela locked up and for continuing the racist apartheid system that he challenged.

Comments by Mitch Zacks,
” I believe 2014 will be a year of accelerating growth in the economy and another up year for stocks. Since WWII, the S&P 500 has had 18 annual gains of 20% or more and 78% of the years immediately following those great years have been positive. Household net worth is a key contributor to GDP and it is rising. Housing has been on the upswing and new home construction is expected to increase in 2014. This will have a broader effect than just helping the housing sector. All the materials and labor needed to build houses will benefit several sectors.

With a pick-up in GDP growth expected and with employment gains already firming, I expect 2014 to be a pretty good year in the labor market. Monthly employment gains are expected to average around 230,000 up from 180,000 expected for 2013. While data from one month does not mean much, it was reported this past week that the private sector added 215,000 in the month of November, the strongest level of hiring in a year. The consensus estimate for jobs created in November was 173,000. Additionally, inflation remains contained and we will not have tax hikes to deal with like we did in the beginning of 2013, which were a drag on GDP growth.”

Mr Ed Mertin post from December 9, 2013 at 8:23 am presented a lot of information.
I am examining the internet currency ecology that has over 80 currencies, banks and exchanges. What does the community think about internet currencies for protection of assets? I don’t have enough assets to trust traditional economic systems.

Australians had the opportunity to purchase these beauts: http://www.bombardier.com/en/aerospace/amphibious-aircraft.html
Can use salt water or fresh from fairly small bodies of water as well; scoops in 10-12 seconds 6.5 tones of water without having to land on the ground and can make as many trips as the gas tanks allow in ratio to how close the body of water is to the fire. However the gov of the day said nope nope nope, so now you pay more, and burn more. This is how many European countries keep their wild fires under control with great success. Canada as well of course and we do get drought conditions in certain regions. California could use them, but doesn’t and they burn.
Caveat: You must hit the fire in it’s beginning (initial attack) as once its too big, nothing helps but the luck of changing winds and a set fire line.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz, elected 13 months ago by actual voters, said Thursday he’d prefer to see state legislators pick U.S. senators – as they were until a century ago, when the 17th Amendment came along.

Direct election of senators has eroded states’ rights, Cruz argued, speaking to a ballroom filled with conservative state lawmakers from around the country.

“If you have the ability to hire and fire me,” he said, “I’m a lot less likely to break into your house and steal your television. So there’s no doubt that was a major step toward the explosion of federal power and the undermining of the authority of the states at the local level.”

The 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913 amid dismay that powerful federal lawmakers were sometimes picked through corruption and backroom deals. It was also partly a response to growing public irritation that even as more and more Americans had the right to vote, they got no say in who represented them in the Senate.

Cruz spoke over lunch to a policy summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a controversial group that for years has quietly circulated “model” legislation on anything from voter ID rules to tax policy. He got standing ovations.

=====================================================================
And he’s absolutely right.
The Senate was not intended to represent the citizens of a State but the government of a State.
The citizens of the nation have their representation in the House of Representatives.

A side note: How come all the polls that deal with people approving or disapproving of Congress don’t break it to the House or Senate?

Ric Werme December 9, 2013 at 10:36 am
It is not one molecule of CO2 but one molecule of human caused CO2

==========================================================================
The SUPER CO2!
It has Carbon 14 from all the nukes!
And Man is causing even more Hiroshima-nuke energy everyday making even more Super CO2!
We’re duped…doomed!

There are certain benefits to the distinct possibility of a non compliant senate, but sometimes it doesnt work out quite the way you’d like. A directly elected senate gives your parliament a cross check on legislative power, and your overly powerfull presidential position. The problem in the American system is not that the make up of the senate is independent, but that your president is not, and has the power to both launch and veto legislation. The USA public could opt for a President independent of a political affiliation, but the problem remains Too much power portends in a single person. Put a corrupt person into that role and it’s goodbye USA, hello banana republic.

Even impeachment doesn’t help because it happens “by the numbers”. If the president has committed a crime, then it should be investigated by the police, come before a court, and the president locked away.

Insurers in competitive markets will up their premiums until the markets can no longer afford them. It has long been a feature in Australia, for example, that premiums for hail insurance for strawberry crops is prohibitive.

The point I was making is that insurers are moving out of home insurance in some areas in response to flood bills and fire bills.

‘The Climate ace lost his argument, so now he is shifting the goal posts so it is the people that don’t live in cities own fault that they have burned to death after the councils restricted fire breaks around their houses to as little as 6m.’

Not at all. My main point was that my insurance premiums are going up faster than the rate of inflation. You have not addressed this main point but you have alerted the world to herds of unicorns and an orchard full of cheries.

‘He blames the same people that put food on his inner city canberran ( if I read the posts right) plate each night, day,after day, year after year.’

I run some beef cattle so I would hardly blame myself.

‘I might point out ace, that I did in fact offer you good advice on how to address your insurance problem. Have your government modify the laws to increase the clearance geometry to the point that houses can be adequately protected. Have your government do the protective backburns, build the dams and levy banks to control flooding, add some strategic sea walls and the reduced property losses will bring down premiums. Maybe $3 Bn could make a start on that, but you better get moving, or greenpeace will beat you to it!’

Very nice, I must say but a bit underdone. I would go a step further and concrete national parks. But why would I want to pay more taxes so governments can do things for private home owners who choose to build their houses in risky situations? They just want to abuse other peoples’ tax money. Not only do I get slugged with higher premiums for their foolishness, I get slugged extra taxes to protected them from their foolishness and then get slugged some more extra taxes every time their foolishness catches up with them. And this is before AGW makes the whole shebang even more risky and more costly. They should be ashamed of themselves.

‘Finally, Once again you are wrong, as a matter of fact I do own Australian property, lots of it , Australian rural property, and yes I do have insurance, good insurance, and yes I do have a firebreak, about 200m of it, oh and just for starters I also manage to sink some 20 Tonnes of CO2 every year more than I emit.’

(1) I wonder whether our properties abut? Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
(2) I am glad that you can get insurance. I suppose that means you would be against the way in which governments give no interest loans to farmers who get burnt out and you would also be against free grants to replacing fencing and so on and so forth?
(3) I suppose the firebreak is on your property? If so, I have no problems with that at all. Well done. If it is done on other peoples’ property, what right have you got to devalue other people’s property?
(4) The general history of clearing and farming in Australia is that the soil has been decarbonized. Note, please ‘general’. This has damaged soil structure, soil drainage, soil nutrient holding capacity and soil moisture holding capacity. Essentially, one way of looking at Australian farming has been that it has been a carbon mining operation. I am glad that you are conscious of your carbon balance. I would be curious to know how you measure both your gains and your losses to arrive at a net carbon gain.

‘For those in other countries, the Australian bush is tough, its fire hardened, the common trees, eucalyptus, etc have leaves loaded with hydrocarbons, some have seed that rely on being burned for germination. On a hot day, the oil evaporating off the trees can form an explosive mixture. If I burn off a pile of branches not 4 feet high and 6 ft wide of dry Australian natives the flames can reach 6 – 8 metres, intense radiant heat 20m and embers 100m. Yet some Australian councils only allow clearing of bush for barely 6m around a house,. If a 4ft pile of rubbish can produce 6m of flame imagine what a grove of closely spaced eucalyptus 20m high loaded with hydrocarbons can do. Consider then what sort of safety margin you’d want for YOUR loved ones from a grove of these biological firebombs.’

For those in other countries this is a cherry-picked example which does have the general benefit of showing that fires in Australia can and do kill people, burn houses, burn farms and destroy infrastructure.

The main lesson from the above example is that houses and bush do not mix. What happens is that city folk build a house ‘amongst the gum trees’ as a popular song goes, and then wonder why it all goes up in smoke. They then want to destroy the bush so that their houses are safe. Dopey stuff, from woe to go. Why would you put YOUR loved ones in that sort of position in the first place? Crazy, right?

Oh, and clearing bush habitats is one reason why Australia is a gold medal winner in the World Cup of extinctions.

If you want some statistical stuff, as opposed to discussion by way of examples, check out the Busfire Report for a statistical treatment of climate and fire trends in Australia. Check out any number of Googled links for the complexity of fire, fire management, and to biotic and abiotic responses to various fire regimes.

“When their houses do get burnt or destroyed in floods, do they blame themselves for their folly? Oh no. They scream blue murder at the government/council/authorities for not protecting them from their own stupidity.,” explained the shameless troll calling itself “climateace.”

No need to get personal. I don’t agree with you but I don’t call you ‘shameless’. Nor do I call you a ‘troll’ because you disagree with me. I might call you ‘wrong’ but not a troll.

That paragraph describes EXACTLY what happens after every major flood and bushfire in Australia. And the result is that our house premiums go up, and up and up.

climateface – I’d rather you refrained from addressing me until you answer the questions that would allow us to verify your claims, e,g. what is the name of that very scary city that you live in, where insurance premiums are outrageous? I want to verify. I want to check the price of insurance premiums in your city.
Until you answer, I will assume you have been lying from the outset.

and folks,
you can’t assign temperature to a single molecule of CO2:
“Unless the molecules in the gas have a speed distribution that conforms to such a [Maxwell-Boltzman] curve, temperature has no meaning for the gas.” – Principles of Modern Chemistry (4th edition.)

I suspect it does not matter where you live in Australia. If you are a home owner or a farmer your premiums are going up. They are going up across the board to defray the costs of hundred million dollar floods and billion dollar fires. They are going up to defray the costs of people who build on flood plains. They are going up to defray the costs of people who build amongst fire bombs. And that is before all the extra taxes, levies and the rest of it that we have to pay for fire prevention, flood prevention and then fixing up various fire and flood messes.

If you can find me an insurer whose premiums are trending with inflation, say over the past ten years of AGW action in Oz, pls let us all know.

Never a more unbiased ‘news’ source than the HuffPo either ‘Red’ -er- Ed? What I would like to know, is, how did they determine that ‘he doesn’t care’. Is he directly quoted or is this simply in the category of ‘creative fiction’ by the HuffPo, a purported ‘news and journal’ enterprise? Nowadays, a for-profit news and journo org …

If I built a tent out of highly polished aluminium would it overheat from my body heat?

The emissivity (IR emission) of polished Aluminum is rather poor … the answer would converge therefore towards a ‘yes’ … would the wind by any chance be blowing? Would this take place under a Bell jar or an airless planet by any chance?

Why are you always so cranky, Jim? Are you still holding onto all that gold you bought at $1900 because Glenn Beck told you to buy gold and it will go to $10,000? Like Blade probably did, like most of you cranky Red State Cons probably did. It’s getting close to $1200 and still has a ways to go.

Explaining economics to Conservatives is like arguing with a stubborn teenager, explaining it to a Libertarian is like reasoning with a 2 year old.

Gunga Din, you’re reply is pretty much unintelligible, please try again. Obviously, if you’d rather believe a billionaires’ slogan that appeals to your prejudice and fears instead of the facts you’re a Conservative.

Based on climate aces fire descriptions and the likelihood of increased premiums due to undoubtedly being in green idealogical territory, I’d place him/her in the Australian Capital Territory. Fortunately half a continent away from my place.

Ps Climateace, have you got the point yet that carbon taxes, the RET , and global warming hysteria serve only to drive up your costs, and premiums, and the sooner the whole green mess is brought back to reason, the sooner your risk premiums can be made to fall. Or thought of another way, a carbon tax and more excuses talking up higher risk premium by climate councils saying bigger fires are the new norm are not likely to reduce your insurance risk premium or make you more insurable.

Who said it was a tax? You might explain to non-Australian readers just where Abbott is going to get the $3,000,000,000 of other peoples’ money.”

You said it (DAP) was funded by the taxpayer! You might want to explain why ~AU$8bil is being paid to “polluters” under the carbon tax. Hydro Tamania, ~AU$50mil, profit windfall as a direct result of the carbon tax, or “other peoples’ money”. Let’s not forget the 10% going to the UN.

Just had a quick squizz at some industry figures: building premiums have tripled in just over a decade. Phew.”

Inflation!’

No, even adjusted for inflation, and adjusted for the increase of property values, premiums far outstrip inflation. If you owned a home in Australia you would know exactly what I am talking about, BTW.

‘Based on climate aces fire descriptions and the likelihood of increased premiums due to undoubtedly being in green idealogical territory, I’d place him/her in the Australian Capital Territory. Fortunately half a continent away from my place.’

I don’t know what ‘green ideological territory’ is but I assume that you believe that it must mean something bad.

The general pattern in the region where I live is that most of the area that gets burnt is cattle and sheep grazing country, forestry plantations, and conservation areas, occasionally with lots of houses, infrastructure and stock going up in smoke as well. Again, and again and again.

‘Ps Climateace, have you got the point yet that carbon taxes, the RET , and global warming hysteria serve only to drive up your costs, and premiums, and the sooner the whole green mess is brought back to reason, the sooner your risk premiums can be made to fall. Or thought of another way, a carbon tax and more excuses talking up higher risk premium by climate councils saying bigger fires are the new norm are not likely to reduce your insurance risk premium or make you more insurable.’

I bet you can’t demonstrate to anyone that carbon taxes, the DAP, the RET, or global warming hysteria, and/or climate science tomfoolery, are driving up my premiums. What actually drives up premiums are: inflation, vast tables of probabilities, the cost of capital, the costs of payouts, the proportion of people in a risk category willing to pay premiums, a time frame, competitive profits and in the case of AGW, increased risks.

The big factor in driving up premiums is tens of thousands of houses being flooded or burned and these are climate-related phenomena.

You seem to be unders some sort of delusion that the insurance industry is not competitive. It is very competitive. Insurers are not charities, and they are not there to subisidise climate change denialists who ignore the increased fire risk in the Australian bush consequent to AGW.

If you want the industry viewpoint, just have a look at the Deoloitte report I linked upstring. If you want bushfire trends, read the Bushfire Report, also linked above.

‘Who said it was a tax? You might explain to non-Australian readers just where Abbott is going to get the $3,000,000,000 of other peoples’ money.”

You said it (DAP) was funded by the taxpayer! ‘

Oh, I see where you have got it wrong.

The DAP is a program, not a tax. The progam is being paid for by taxpayers – you and me. The reason you are confused is probably that is exactly what Abbott intended.”

I did not say DAP was a tax, i said it was a “plan”. A plan that does not need to be implemented. DAP would be, IF IMPLEMENTED, funded by taxpayers. UNLIKE the carbon tax which is imposed indesciminantly across production, ie, EVERYONE pays (eventually)!